At the beginning of 2023, the United States transferred 300,000 155-mm artillery shells from Israel's war stockpile to Ukraine. At the time, it was the only conflict in which the United States was involved. The situation changed in the wake of Hamas's terrorist attacks on October 7. Now, Israel is also asking for ammunition, putting pressure on already tight U.S. stockpiles and questioning the Defense Department's ammunition planning and the budget priorities of congressional appropriators. The U.S. side has taken on more tasks than its equipment does.
At the moment, the armed forces of the United States do not have the ammunition they need in the event of an emergency in the Indo-Pacific region, and of course, according to the current situation in the United States, not enough ammunition is produced to maintain operations in all three theaters at the same time. For example, Ukraine consumes 110,000 155mm shells per month, claims to need at least 356,400 shells per month, and hopes to be able to fire 594,000 shells per month. Ukraine's demand is already much larger than what the United States produces per month, perhaps around 4 times. Israel's request for 155-mm shells from the United States is also a problem. But with the U.S. global reserves severely depleted by the war in Ukraine, it remains to be seen if the Pentagon can find shells for Israel without diverting shells destined for Ukraine.
Poor ammunition planning by Pentagon and congressional funders could mean that at least some of the war stockpiles in the Pacific theater could be diverted, weakening the U.S. ability to respond to Indo-Pacific emergencies. This makes little sense when the National Defense Strategy identifies China as the main challenge for the United States. But the Pentagon's shortage of shells is not the only problem with the ammunition program. Israel has also requested the acquisition of precision-guided munitions, such as small-diameter bombs and joint direct attack munitions. The U.S. has pledged to provide both, but it's unclear how this can be done without inhibiting the U.S. overall ability to respond to other emergencies.
In fiscal year 2022, the United States procured only about 3,000 and 2,000 Joint Direct Attack munitions and small-diameter bombs, respectively. This is much less than the JDAM and SDM used by Israel in a year. And FY23 procurement didn't make things better. In addition to the Pentagon's past failures in its ammunition program, its future plans may be even more worrisome.
Military Xi has repeatedly indicated that the United States will run out of critical ammunition in eight days of a high-intensity conflict with China over Taiwan. Why does the United States have such a prediction?The U.S. side gave a data. For example, the annual procurement of Tomahawk missiles and MK48 torpedoes by the Navy is far from meeting the needs of the fleet. If all 73 Burke-class destroyers are available, then the Navy's FY22 procurement of 70 Tomahawks can only launch 096 Tomahawks. If all 22 Virginia-class submarines are available, then the 58 MK 48 torpedoes procured by the Navy in that fiscal year will not be able to fill 88 torpedo tubes. An educated guess is that the Navy has about 4000 Tomahawks. If 20% of the vertical launch system units of the US surface fleet and 100% of the vertical launch system units of the submarine fleet are equipped with Tomahawks, if 80% of the US surface fleet, 60% of US attack submarines and 33% of US strategic submarines can be deployed in a conflict, then the Navy can launch about 2300 Tomahawks without reloading. All in all, the Navy's Tomahawk stock is so low that it may not be able to reload all ships once.
The same is true for other types of ammunition. The total number of previously produced joint air-to-surface standoff missiles is only about 3000 units, and this is not counting the hundreds that have already been spent on combat. And the stocks of long-range anti-ship missiles may not exceed 120 units. The current task of the United States relies on deterrence and the supply of ammunition to allies. It anticipates that falling short on the latter will certainly undermine the former's position in the minds of the planners of the Chinese agenda. The Americans have bad intentions, the United States is preparing for a conflict with China over Taiwan, but North Korea may decide to invade South Korea at any time, and the most dangerous window may be that the United States is fighting for Taiwan. The United States has a treaty obligation to help South Korea defend itself, and the consumption of ammunition in such a war would further jeopardize the ability of the United States to fight China.
With U.S. attention focused on supplying Ukraine with the ammunition it needs for war with Russia, and the likely ongoing violence in the Middle East, there is a risk that the U.S. will become embroiled in the fighting in three regions at once. This will exceed the capabilities of the existing ammunition depots of the United States. Let's take a look at the American solution.
The first step in solving the long-standing problem of ammunition in the United States is to increase the procurement authority for the use of many years across the board. The use of multi-year contracts sends a long-term demand signal to industry, allowing the defense industrial base to expand and accelerate the production of these munitions. Similarly, multi-year purchases have been proven to reduce costs over time, leading to positive outcomes for the military and U.S. taxpayers.